Effortless Engagement: Making it easy to be a customer Conference/2013... · Maximising Value through Relationships Effortless Engagement: Making it easy to be a customer Professor

www.hccmsite.co.uk Maximising Value through Relationships

Effortless Engagement: Making it easy to be a customer

Professor Moira Clark

© The Henley Centre for Customer Management 2013

Effortless engagement: Are we working our customers too hard?

• What do we mean by customer effort?

• Understanding the different types of

customer effort

• How to map out the customer effort

journey

• Key future steps to building customer

loyalty

© The Henley Centre for Customer Management 2013 3

• Get customers

• Keep customers

• Grow customers

Customer loyalty can be defined as:

Customers’ intention to keep doing business

with the company, to increase the amount

they spend and to spread positive word of

mouth

Objectives of a company


Net Promoter Score: LSE report Advocacy drives growth

Email surveys: 83% Phone surveys: 90%


Customer Effort - what’s it about?

• Research into the impact of “effort” on customer loyalty

started in 1940’s

• Gained momentum in 2010 with the HBR article


The Customer Effort Score

Source: HBR article - “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers” by Matthew Dixon, Karen Freeman, and Nicholas Toman

LOW HIGH

HIGH

PREDICTIVE POWER FOR REPURCHASING

PREDICTIVE POWER FOR INCREASED SPENDING

CSAT

NPS

CES

The Customer Effort Score Outperforms the Net Promoter Score and customer satisfaction measures in predicting behaviour.


Stop trying to delight customers?

• The HBR article challenged the premise that companies must strive to “delight” customers by exceeding service expectations.

• Their large scale study (75,000 respondents) of contact centre and self-service interactions found that what customers really want is ….

“a satisfactory solution to their service issue”.



The Customer Effort Score

“How much effort did you personally have to put forth to handle your request?” 1 (very low effort) to 5 (very high effort).

• Of the 75,000 B2B and B2C customers who reported low effort, 94% expressed an intention to repurchase and 88% said they would increase their spending.

• Conversely, 81% of the customers who had a hard time solving their problems reported an intention to spread negative word of mouth.



Customer effort is a customer’s perception of the amount of time and energy that he/she has to spend in an encounter with a brand or an organisation.

• It is different from the objective amount of time

and energy. • It is the nonmonetary cost of consumption. • It can be a global judgment or a judgment about a

single encounter.

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What is customer effort?


Why measure effort?

• Drives advocacy, value for money and loyalty

– Churning customers tend to have had difficulty in doing

business with you and spread negative word of mouth

– BT research shows > 40% difference in churn between

“easy” and “difficult”

– BT research points to CE as the number one driver of

advocacy among BT customers


Why measure effort – cont?

• Drives advocacy, value for money and loyalty

• High actionable feedback – tells you what drives your

customers mad!

• Applicable to all channels and all businesses

• Engages and resonates with staff

• Low effort = low cost for everyone!


1. Queuing and waiting time

2. Transaction/consumption time

3. Cognitive energy

4. Emotional energy

5. Physical energy

Dimensions of customer effort


Types of effort

• Cognitive effort

• Web site – difficult/easy to navigate

• Information – too much/ too little

• Directions to site – complicated/easy

• Prices – gocompare.com

• Instructions on product /service – difficult/easy to

understand

• Complaints procedures – difficult/easy to understand


Don’t overload with choice


Types of effort

• Emotional effort

• People relationship – staff, other clients

• Inability to access the right people, processes or

procedures

• Complaints not being properly dealt with

• Being kept waiting

• Safety and security


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Example: reducing cognitive and emotional effort for diabetic patients


Types of effort

• Time effort

• Waiting / queuing – in any channel

• Simplified procedures to shorten time effort

• Explaining things again and again

• Being given the run around

• Distance travelled

• Telepresencing/


Telepresence

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Now you can be in two places at once

Non present presence


Customers want:

• Information & explanation • Decision making help • Reassurance • Flexibility • Availability and access • Professional customer-contact representatives

Customers do not want:

• Surprises—unmet expectations • Slow and lengthy processes

Drivers of customer effort B2C


Customers want:

• Access to decision makers

• Responsive company—quick to react

• A contact point that is easy to get hold of

• The company to really listen to me

• An individualised approach to business

Drivers of customer effort B2B


Effort and loyalty are correlated: it isn’t just hype!

22

‘The rate of customer loss for the “easy” scores was found to be significantly

less than for the others and showed a 40% reduction in their propensity to churn.’

‘Invest in the lower end of recommendation scores,

minimising the “no” and “unlikely” responses, rather

than moving customers from “probably” to “definitely”’

B2C Companies

‘Negative effort experiences were a stronger loyalty

indicator than positive’


Effort and loyalty are correlated: it isn’t just hype!

23

Effort questions added to annual surveys identified

‘trapped’ customers - those who indicated they would

remain customers but were at risk if another supplier was

available

B2B companies had specific examples where

customer defections were prevented due to CE led improvements

B2B Companies


• Matching customer expectations to actual effort value propositions

• Handling exceptions well

• Having good end-to-end processes for the customer - being 'joined up' .

Clear sign-posting about what companies are doing and what you need to

do and when

• Consistency of engagement - so that it doesn't matter who you speak to.

• Knows you when you are a returning customer – identifies you quickly

• Understands and takes into account your preferences

• Doesn’t waste my time

• It’s pleasurable and relaxing

• Delivers on promises

“The perception is that they work around you – feels like it is tailored –

consulting you/engaged in the process – makes you feel you are in control”

What does ‘being easy to do business with’ mean?


‘Easy’ does it – not ‘effort’

• Companies found that

while CES is

understandable to

both customers and

employees, more

accurate results were

achieved by phrasing

the question as ‘how

easy was it’ rather than

‘how much effort was

needed’.

25


CES: Make it easy to be a customer

Companies create loyal customers by making it

easy for them to be a customer: helping them to

solve their problems quickly and easily

‘Making It Easy to be a

Customer’


Measuring CES: The Net Easy Score: NES

Overall how easy was it to get the help you wanted

from BT today?

Extremely easy

Very easy Fairly easy

Neither Fairly difficult

Very difficult

Extremely difficult

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

The % of easy - % difficult = Net easy score


•Tech Services: Technical Assistance

•Tech Services: Technical Support Website

•Fulfillment: Time and Effort to Order Products/Services

•Tech Services: Software Download Process

•Fulfillment: Meeting Delivery Needs

•Products: Time to Adoption

Areas of focus to improve EODB for customers

•Account Team: Responsiveness

•Account Team: Commitment to Business Success

Leverage and maintain strong performance in these key areas

EODB key driver analysis project conducted using FY11 results

Global Ease of Doing Business PrioritiesSpecial analysis project reveals focus areas to improve EODB

Priorities based on Global Results



Cu

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fort

Sco

re 5

4

3

2

1 Location of terminal

Car park

Bag drop

Business Class lounge

Signs

Security

Toilet Restaurants

Gates Boarding

Touchpoints In Time Sequence

Time effort of the BAA T5 journey


Not all touch points and channels are equal

• Some are more important in driving satisfaction

• Some are important in reflecting brand

differentiation

• Some are important in driving customer

retention or referrals

• Some may not be important at all.

This means that not all touch-points / channels are

equally important, so resources need to be

allocated differently


Cu

sto

me

r Ex

pe

rie

nce

Sco

re

5

4

3

2

1 Location of terminal

Car park

Bag drop

Business Class lounge

Signs

Security

Toilet Restaurants

Gates Boarding

Touchpoints In Time Sequence

Time effort of the BAA T5 journey


B2C vs B2C

• B2C guidance, focus on customer contact points:

– Equip staff to address the emotional side of customer

interactions. 24% of the repeat calls stem from emotional

disconnects between customers and reps!

– Minimise channel switching by increasing channel

“stickiness”. 57% of inbound calls come from customers

who went to the web site first!

– Empower the frontline to deliver a low-effort experience.

Incentive schemes that reward speed over quality pose

the greatest threat to reducing customer effort

32


B2C vs B2B

• B2B guidance, think customer centric:

– Start with the customer service function. 22% of repeat

calls involve downstream issues related to the problem

that prompted the original call.

– Spread the message throughout customer facing

functions

– Use customer feedback from unhappy or struggling

customers to reduce customer effort!

33


Actions and summary

• Put “Make it Easy to be a Customer” on your boardroom

agenda

• Galvanise everyone's thinking around “Easy”

• Talk about it, educate staff, make “Easy” part of the culture

• Be customer-centric - Ask staff “What would the customer

think?”

• Clear the obstacles to making it easy

• Challenge practices, procedures and systems that make it

“difficult” to be a customer

Make it easy to be a customer

www.hccmsite.co.uk Maximising Value through Relationships

Thank You

Professor Moira Clark

Documents

Effortless Engagement: Making it easy to be a customer Conference/2013... · Maximising Value through Relationships Effortless Engagement: Making it easy to be a customer Professor